


Impending Marriage

by live_laugh_read



Series: Billabong Missing Moments [18]
Category: Billabong Series - Mary Grant Bruce
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-22
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-26 01:07:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7554280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/live_laugh_read/pseuds/live_laugh_read
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A missing scene set after the close of Mary Grant Bruce's novel Billabong's Daughter, in which Norah's aunt Winifred and cousin Cecil discuss her engagement.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Impending Marriage

Mrs. Winifred Linton surveyed the letter she had received from her niece sternly, eye-glass lifted so as to better peruse its contents.  It was rather baffling in some ways; but in others, it made perfect sense.

 

A step nearby caused her to look up, and her son Cecil entered the room.  Twenty-nine years old, he had never been as fit since the war as he had been in the years preceding it: yet, he had found a nice, sensible girl and planned to marry her next year.  The length of their courtship was sufficient, Winifred reasoned, for the young couple to get to know each other before committing for life. 

 

“Good morning, Cecil,” she greeted him.  “How are you?” 

 

He threw himself into a chair opposite hers, using his stick to poke morosely at the carpet. “I didn’t sleep that well.  It’s a pity the butler has not organised for the electric heating to be fixed—after all, it is almost winter.  We cannot be expected to shiver in the cooler hours.” 

 

Silently, his mother held up the letter.  “I have received communication from your cousin, Norah.  Personally, I do not find that it makes much sense.” 

 

Cecil frowned, and she unfolded the piece of paper, raised her eye-glass again and read out loud, “I have recently returned from Brisbane, after attending the hospital-bed of Wally.  You may remember Wally Meadows from previous visits and letters; it is my glad duty to inform you, Aunt, of our impending marriage.” The news delivered, the eye-glass lowered again and Winifred met the shocked gaze of her son.

 

“Norah—is going to marry that—Queenslander?” Cecil visibly shuddered.  “I remember him from my last visit to Billabong, Mother: he was sixteen, and as unruly as Jim himself.  I will grant that when we next met after the War, when he was twenty-three, he had gained something of sense.  However, as a mate for Norah—she would be better off with a city lad to keep her in check.”

 

“I agree, my son.”  Winifred pursed her lips.  “David has allowed her to grow too free, and she has never learnt the womanly arts she ought.  I blame myself, of course, for not taking her out of there as soon as Mary died, and raising her myself.  Instead, my wretched brother-in-law has neglected her book learning; she did not advance beyond Year 10 due to the war.  He assures me she was tutored in England, but I highly doubt this.” 

 

Slowly, deliberately, Cecil rose, using his walking stick as an aid.  It had become necessary, after his leg injury in the Great War, and while Winifred mourned the loss of her son’s wholeness, she thought privately that it displayed the lengths he had gone to for King and Country.  “Norah has taken it too far.  I must away to Billabong, much as I dislike it, to talk sense to her.” 

 

“Hold off,” she advised him.  “Let it run its course, and when she waits to walk up the aisle she will realise her mistake.  She is but young: she has time to find a suitable husband.  Mr. Meadows, as you know, is not it.” 

 

_However, Mrs. Linton did not know how wrong she was…_

**Author's Note:**

> Just a tiny little bit of Cecil-and-his-mother-bashing. :P You KNOW they highly disapproved of Norah and Wally. Cecil hated Wally from the start, and he always tried - in vain - to make Norah more "lady like". Nope.


End file.
